Ares III Limited Edition vs Sapphire 100360SR

O

Obmas

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 2, 2001
Messages
353
I will be purchasing an LG 34UM95-P monitor and need a video card to drive it as I have a gtx580 classified ultra right now. From my terse research the Sapphire 100360SR and the Asus Ares III Limited Edition seem like the best picks. My only concern is that I just have a Corsair H100 cooler so I am not sure the best way to implement a WC setup for the Ares. I have a Lian Li pc-v2120 case so it shouldn't be too hard to add I guess.

Any advice as to if the Sapphire will suffice or if the Ares is really worth the hassle of adding water cooling?

I'll read the WC section on here and hit the googles. Thank you for your time.
 
You'd be better off with two Nvidia GTX 980s for the same price.Both of the cards you suggested have the VRAM shared and mirrored between both GPUs, so you only have 4GB usable for both cards.
 
Either the sapphire or the asus should work fine. The 970/980 should also be quite good. AMD will probably win the framerate competition, but then you've got greater cost and more power draw with the AMD as well. Choice is yours.
 
980 SLI is slightly faster than the 295X2 in every game and costs a little bit more, but uses less power, generates less heat, and should be quieter. 970 SLI is all over the place; it can be slightly faster, slightly slower, or equivalent depending on the game. it costs a lot less and has the same pros as 980 SLI. cooling is a nonissue with the nvidia cards.

you could get three 970s for $50 more than a 295X2 and get much higher framerates in games that scale well past two cards. according to a hardware.info review, three 980s averages 77 fps in battlefield 4 with ultra settings at 4K. i imagine three 970s at 3440x1440 would be about the same or higher.

my recommendation: 970 SLI. you'll get the same gameplay experience as a 295X2 while saving a lot of money in both the short and long term.
 
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I have an Rampage IV Extreme so I could do 3x SLI. I also have a 1500w power supply to power them. I'm just worried about the heat of that many, hmm. If I do two 980's in SLI I get true 8GB usable?

Saw that WCing is still ez and swiftech made affordable stuff.

I'll do some more comparisons among cards and combos.

Thank very much. This information was informative and helpful.
 
Welp, it looks like the Ares is gonna sell out before I get my check so I can't do that unless it's still for sale in 3-4 days.

Kind forces my hand but the idea of WCing my cpu with a real setup along with the Ares seemed like a nice mini upgrade.
 
vram is mirrored, not stacked. you've been a memeber here for 13 years, you should know this :). there are a select few gpus that have models with more than 4 GB of usable vram. off the top of my head there's the 7970, 780, titan, and sapphire has an 8 GB 290X.
 
Would've bought multiple 8gb 290x if stupid Sapphire would've released in the US. If ARES III had 8GB (16GB total) I would've bought two instantly, but as it stands it's being released way too late to be of interest unless running WC small form factor
 
Go with the Ares III; it looks better. That's pretty much the only reason to go with it instead.
 
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